The Role of Lifestyle Medicine in Helping to Build Workforce Retention and Resilience
By Suzanne K. Speer, Vice President of Workforce Development, Association of Clinicians for the Underserved
The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated what so many in healthcare already knew: to provide effective care to patients, organizations must also prioritize employee well-being. Employee well-being is a significant predictor of workforce outcomes,[1] and clinician burnout has serious impacts on quality of care and patient satisfaction.[2] Simply put, we cannot care for others until we care for ourselves, and clinicians cannot stand alone: organizations must support their workforce and foster resilience through a host of approaches, including lifestyle medicine.
The Reality of Burnout
Burnout is a fact of life in the healthcare workforce, and mitigating the effects is a crucial factor in staff retention. One in three physicians experience burnout at any given time,[3] and the phenomenon affects all healthcare professionals of all disciplines.[4] Its effects are diverse. Energy levels can drop as clinicians suffer from exhaustion. Compassion fatigue—the stress and vicarious trauma of caring for others—can set in, resulting in depersonalization or disconnection in care. And lastly, clinicians’ belief in their mission—and their effectiveness itself—can falter.
If the effects of burnout are many, so are the causes. Organizationally, administrative inefficiencies, unclear expectations, and competing demands can play significant roles in wearing down clinicians’ reserves. On a personal basis, work-life balance, family dynamics, and caretaking obligations as well as time management can also all play a role in burnout. Worse patient safety, decreased efficiency, and turnover can often be the result.[5]
Building Resilience through Organizational Commitments to Wellness
Despite these challenges, there are very real approaches to foster employee wellness and reduce burnout. At the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved (ACU), we often educate institutions in well-being strategies in the understanding that building a stronger workforce begins not with recruitment, but with retention. In our National Center for Workforce Development & Training’s numerous initiatives, we center efforts to advance both organizational and individual resilience and the retention of our workforce.
What we teach is clear: organizations must support clinician well-being through holistic approaches. Fostering an organizational culture that is trauma-informed is critical, as is ensuring employees’ psychological safety. So, too, is a commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Diverse approaches are necessary to meet the needs of a diverse workforce—from creating flexible workspaces that encourage self-care and work-life balance to fostering lifestyle wellness.
A Holistic Approach and the Role of Lifestyle Medicine
In its emphasis on whole-person health, lifestyle medicine is a natural component of a holistic approach to employee wellness. Workforce wellness programs have notable effects on fostering positive health behaviors,[6] and lifestyle medicine can play a key role in fostering wellness and productivity in employees.[7] Similarly, adopting a lifestyle medicine approach in patient care can also benefit professional satisfaction and is associated with lessened burnout.[8]
Ultimately, the burden and the benefits of employee retention lie with the employer, and an ongoing and inclusive commitment to employee wellness is necessary. Lifestyle medicine is a crucial element of these approaches, and ACU is proud to partner with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine to spotlight its importance. For years, we’ve known the impact that fostering holistic approaches such as lifestyle medicine can make in achieving health equity. There’s no better time than now to recognize the impact it can have on the wellness of our employees as well.
RESEARCH STUDY
The integration of lifestyle medicine emerges as a promising approach, offering healthcare practitioners a means to prevent and manage burnout, enhance their professional satisfaction, and establish deeper connections with their patients.
Read the full study: Lifestyle Medicine Practitioners Implementing a Greater Proportion of Lifestyle Medicine Experience Less Burnout